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Our 2nd Grade Curriculum.

I just love teaching the younger grades! We have so much fun piecing together Evan's work and choosing what we want to work on each day.

Mainly we use games and hands on learning opportunities but as he is ending second grade and heading into third we are slowly adding more traditional schoolwork into his day.

For Math:

Evan picked out his math book this year. While he had completed the Star Wars Math Workbook for second grade without difficulty last year I was hesitant to put him in a third grade book this year. Luckily he found a workbook he was dying to use called Math Made Easy Marvel Heroes. It has been just perfect! He only has about 60 pages left in this book and so far he hasn't had any difficulty completing the pages (though he still has me write most of the answers and work since he prefers to dictate it all to me). I like that this has gone more in depth than the Star Wars book though so it was challenging without frustrating him.

Though we will be wrapping up this book soon, Evan has been having so much fun learning his multiplication facts that we'll supplement the rest of second grade using a variety of books I already have on hand. Mainly the Thinking Tree Multiplication Games book and Mystery Picture Math.

For Reading and Language Arts:

Evan mostly picks out easy reader books from our library or from a bin I set aside after going through all the books in our house. He enjoys a mixture of fiction and non- fiction books and his skills are growing rapidly. To reinforce his reading he also works in the 2nd Grade Star Wars Reading book at least once a week completing two pages at a time. We have used all of the Star Wars reading workbooks and he enjoys them so much.

This is a fairly new subject area for us. Last year Evan was mostly working on writing his full name, remembering how to form each letter and just practicing basic penmanship. This year he has really taken off and enjoys Draw, Write, Now books. SO much so that I have been limiting him on how many pages he can do for fear that he will get sick of them. We do occasionally have other writing work when we stumble across an idea that we like but more often than not he just asks to work with the Draw Write Now books. Copywork is great for him and I am amazed by how well his drawing skills have developed too. The boys also love playing Mad Libs and learning grammar terms like adjective versus adverb.

Science:

Evan loves to read books with me about animals and their features, adaptations and skills. He watched a lot of Magic School Bus episodes as well as Wild Kratts and other fun science shows. He enjoys watching nature documentaries and trips to the zoos and science museums. We also use a lot of kits in our science studies and just this past week he built a remote control vehicle. We have a microscope and go on nature walks all the time. He just loves science and we never quite know what we'll discover next.

History and Geography:

We mainly cover these subjects as the kids show interest. They do have a geography fair coming up with our local homeschool group and Evan chose to learn about the Polar regions so we're reading lots of books about all the animals in the arctic and antarctic. We play fun games like Geobingo and Scrambled States of America. We try new recipes from foreign lands and watch travel videos to. History topics are covered as the boys ask to learn about a time period; currently we are studying the French Revolution. We've also watched the Liberty's Kids series and read a lot of historical fiction books.

Art:

Evan has never been interested much in arts and crafts. I do offer to do projects with them often and occasionally he will participate. I never force him to and we try to find alternatives to the traditional drawing, painting, and sculpting. He does enjoy making the occasional loom band bracelet and he had fun making luminaries this fall and winter. We have done a few artist studies and enjoy reading books about the artists and their lives, looking at their artwork and talking about their style. We have just recently started using the Spot the Differences Art Masterpiece book.

Physical Education:

While we don't do anything real formal for physical education we are quite physically active. Evan does take a weekly karate class and we often ride bikes, go for hikes in the woods, and try out new sports. This year we've been trying out a few different aerial obstacle courses. It has been a lot of fun. We've also tried indoor rock climbing and trampoline classes. The boys mostly enjoy meeting friends at a park and playing pick up games of chase, soccer, kick ball, etc.

Oooh, love the Star Wars workbook. I might get one for Lance for review. It seems gentle enough to go with Dyslexia Games. I know he's older but it will give him some reading practice in a non stressful way. Thanks for linking up and sharing!

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